MicroCare LLC, the manufacturer of the Sticklers brand of fiber-optic cleaning solutions, recently promoted Sean Gallimore to the position of chief operating officer (COO). In the COO role, he takes responsibility for global operations, marketing, and strategic initiatives. Gallimore has been with MicroCare since 2025, and when announcing his appointment as COO, the company said he “has played a key role in advancing the company’s growth strategy and strengthening cross-functional collaboration.”

MicroCare’s chief executive officer Tom Tattersall praised Gallimore: “Sean understands both where our markets are going and what it takes to build organizations that can scale and make a meaningful impact. That blend of vision and execution is exactly what we need as we continue expanding our global business and delivering innovative solutions to customers around the world.”

The company serves a number of industries including medical, aerospace, defense, precision manufacturing, and industrial technology in addition to fiber optics. For the fiber-optic industry in which Sticklers cleaning products are widely used, Gallimore has the opportunity to lead the brand in a market in which all indicators point to strong growth. In recent analysis of the global market for fiber-optic cabling, CRU Group’s lead analyst Ahmed Ali noted that in 2025, “Growth in AI infrastructure translated directly into exceptional demand for high-fiber-count ribbon cables. These cables bundle thousands of fibers to maximize bandwidth and spatial efficiency which are essential as hyperscalers continue to expand their data center capacity through new builds, campus upgrades and interconnect densification. Manufacturers are increasingly catering for these types of ribbon cables and prioritizing high-density designs, to meet and futureproof the evolving requirements of the data center sector.”

Ali and CRU Group also quantified the impact of AI and hyperscale data centers on the demand for fiber. Recapping 2025, Ali pointed out, “Data center construction transformed demand dynamics. The rapid expansion of training clusters required dense fiber links within server rooms, while increasingly interconnected hyperscale campuses drove a renewed wave of data center interconnect [DCI] builds. These applications rely on low-loss designs, higher-spec fiber such as G.657.A1 and G.657.A2, and extremely high-fiber-count cable arrangements, which pushed data center-related consumption to the center of market growth. With data center operators optimizing for speed, low latency, throughput and energy efficiency, optical cable requirements rose sharply across internal links, DCI and backbone upgrades, far outpacing the demand growth from traditional telecom segments.”

A single contaminated fiber connection can be tumultuous for a data center of any type, and certainly for a facility that is intolerant of errors. For environments like these, Sticklers offers the Pro360 Touchless Cleaner. The cleaner’s contact-free/zero-damage qualities eliminate manual physical wiping and clicking. Its speed in high-volume cleaning environments also is an attribute of note for data center networks. The cleaner’s revolutionary capabilities differentiate it from other cleaning methods, but the general unfamiliarity of technicians and network operators is a curve that MicroCare has been navigating since the tool’s introduction.

In MicroCare’s announcement of Gallimore’s promotion to the COO position, the company said he is “known for translating strategy into execution,” and “has a proven record of scaling businesses, commercializing innovation, and driving sustainable growth.” The opportunity for such execution and growth are available for the Sticklers brand.